MIT Press Open Access

The MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing for two decades, beginning in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell's City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition. We support a variety of open access funding models for select books, including monographs, trade books, and textbooks.

The MIT Press is a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, and the arts. MIT Press books and journals are known for their intellectual daring, scholarly standards, and distinctive design.

Open Access Title

Overview

Author(s)

Praise

Summary

A penetrating and insightful study of privacy and security in telecommunications for a post-9/11, post-Patriot Act world.

Telecommunication has never been perfectly secure. The Cold War culture of recording devices in telephone receivers and bugged embassy offices has been succeeded by a post-9/11 world of NSA wiretaps and demands for data retention. Although the 1990s battle for individual and commercial freedom to use cryptography was won, growth in the use of cryptography has been slow. Meanwhile, regulations requiring that the computer and communication industries build spying into their systems for government convenience have increased rapidly. The application of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act has expanded beyond the intent of Congress to apply to voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other modern data services; attempts are being made to require ISPs to retain their data for years in case the government wants it; and data mining techniques developed for commercial marketing applications are being applied to widespread surveillance of the population.

In Privacy on the Line, Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau strip away the hype surrounding the policy debate over privacy to examine the national security, law enforcement, commercial, and civil liberties issues. They discuss the social function of privacy, how it underlies a democratic society, and what happens when it is lost. This updated and expanded edition revises their original—and prescient—discussions of both policy and technology in light of recent controversies over NSA spying and other government threats to communications privacy.

Hardcover

Out of PrintISBN: 9780262042406496 pp. | 9 in x 6 inMarch 2007

Paperback

$31.95
T
ISBN: 9780262514002496 pp. | 9 in x 6 inFebruary 2010

Share

Authors

Whitfield Diffie

Whitfield Diffie, the inventor of public-key cryptography, is Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway College at the University of London.

Susan Landau

Susan Landau is Bridge Professor in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the School of Engineering, Department of Computer Science, at Tufts University. She has been a Senior Staff Privacy Analyst at Google, a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, and a faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Wesleyan University. Landau has been a Guggenheim fellow and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and is a member of the Cybersecurity Hall of Fame, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Reviews

A compact and intelligible guide to both the technical and the political issues.

Laurence A. Marschall

The Sciences

A superb and timely introduction to a subject of enormous importance for scholars and citizens alike.

Choice

A well-researched and fascinating study.

Lawrence Rothstein

Law and Politics Review

A wise, meticulously researched guide....

London Review of Books

An incredibly comprehensive insight into the world of encryption and wiretaps, its political machinations, legal aspects, technologies, vulnerabilities, costs, limitations, and near-ubiquity.

G. Ernest Govea

Security Management

Diffie and Landau deserve a large audience. Their lucid exposition adds valuable context to debates that for too long have been abstract.

Aziz Huq

The American Prospect

Should be required reading for any computing student at any level.

Harold Thimbleby

New Scientist

The book details numerous privacy issues, from personal privacy to national security.... A welcome surprise is that the book often reads like a Tom Clancy novel, interwoven as it is with episodes of domestic and international intrigue.... A timely and important book.

Ben Rothke

Security Management

A compact and intelligible guide to both the technical and the political issues.

Laurence A. Marschall

The Sciences

A superb and timely introduction to a subject of enormous importance for scholars and citizens alike.

Choice

[A] wise, meticulously researched guide...

London Review of Books

Should be required reading for any computing student at any level.

Harold Thimbleby

New Scientist

The book details numerous privacy issues, from personal privacy to national security.... A welcome surprise is that the book often reads like a Tom Clancy novel, interwoven as it is with episodes of domestic and international intrigue.... A timely and important book.

Ben Rothke

Security Management

Awards

Awarded the 1998 Donald McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research.